Grilled Cheese; Oh Yeah

Week nine of school was already over. The kids ran crazy eights around the playground in afternoon temps that beat late spring. Yali gathered clusters of fallen leaves with the other younger boys and tossed them into the air, giving me this face every once in awhile that clearly read, “Yeah, Mom. I’m pretty big stuff.”

Sniff, sniff. Sniff.

Yali held an unshelled peanut under his nose to catch another whiff.

Sniff, sniff. “Ahhh,” he said, as if he was smelling a flower.

We were at Five Guys Burgers waiting for dinner, and Puck and Yali had already raided the peanut bin, peanut shells flying everywhere.

“Dad?” Puck asked, rather loudly, “What does holding up your middle finger mean?”

“It’s like saying a curse word.”

“Oops…” Puck thought about that for a moment. “Is holding up your pinky a swear word?”

Meanwhile, Yali was pretty pleased with his menu selection, aside from the peanuts.

He put on some kind of “cool guy” face and rocked his shoulders up and down – no doubt something he mirrored from Puck – and said, “Grilled cheese. Oh yeah!”

Time for another movie night – “Fantastic Mr. Fox”.

“Is the door to the laundry room shut?” Rose asked after awhile.

A load of laundry was rolling in the dryer, and Rose’s hyper-sensitive ears were picking up on it. It’s always been her pet peeve. If the laundry’s going, she has to shut the door to muffle the noise.

“I have to leave it partly open so the cat can get back there,” Oxbear explained. “I should put a cat door in that thing.

How hard could that be if you don’t have a hacksaw?”

The suggestions started.

“Just hit it with a hammer.”

“Punch it.”

“Use scissors.”

Or mine: “Just leave it.”

Puck’s Monthly What-do-You-Want-to-be-When-You-Grow-Up Status:

“Probably a scientist or secretly an inventor. No, a game person that’s secretly a scientist. Like a gamer.”